Robotics Research News

May 15, 2024

Top Headlines

Animal Brain Inspired AI Game Changer for Autonomous Robots

May 15, 2024 — A team of researchers has developed a drone that flies autonomously using neuromorphic image processing and control based on the workings of animal brains. Animal brains use less data and energy compared to current deep neural networks running on ...

Robots' and Prosthetic Hands' Sense of Touch Could Be as Fast as Humans

May 15, 2024 — Research could pave the way for a prosthetic hand and robot to be able to feel touch like a human hand. The technology could also be used to help restore lost functionality to patients after a ...

Researchers Use Artificial Intelligence to Boost Image Quality of Metalens Camera

May 15, 2024 — Researchers have leveraged deep learning techniques to enhance the image quality of a metalens camera. The new approach uses artificial intelligence to turn low-quality images into high-quality ones, ...

Cats Purrfectly Demonstrate What It Takes to Trust Robots

May 13, 2024 — Would you trust a robot to look after your cat? New research suggests it takes more than a carefully designed robot to care for your cat, the environment in which they operate is also vital, as well as human ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:53pm EDT

A Better Way to Control Shape-Shifting Soft Robots

May 9, 2024 — A new machine-learning technique can train and control a reconfigurable soft robot that can dynamically change its shape to complete a task. The researchers also built a simulator that can evaluate ...

Robotic System Feeds People With Severe Mobility Limitations

May 9, 2024 — Researchers have developed a robotic feeding system that uses computer vision, machine learning and multimodal sensing to safely feed people with severe mobility limitations, including those with ...

Generative AI That Imitates Human Motion

May 9, 2024 — Walking and running is notoriously difficult to recreate in robots. Now, a group of researchers has overcome some of these challenges by creating an innovative method that employs central pattern ...

Swarms of Miniature Robots Clean Up Microplastics and Microbes, Simultaneously

May 8, 2024 — When old food packaging, discarded children's toys and other mismanaged plastic waste break down into microplastics, they become even harder to clean ...

Caterbot? Robatapillar? It Crawls With Ease Through Loops and Bends

May 6, 2024 — Engineers created a catapillar-shaped robot that splits into segments and reassembles, hauls cargo, and crawls through twisting ...

Stretchable E-Skin Could Give Robots Human-Level Touch Sensitivity

May 3, 2024 — A stretchy electronic skin could equip robots and other devices with the same softness and touch sensitivity as human skin, opening up new possibilities to perform tasks that require a great deal of ...

Random Robots Are More Reliable

May 2, 2024 — New algorithm encourages robots to move more randomly to collect more diverse data for learning. In tests, robots started with no knowledge and then learned and correctly performed tasks within a ...

Activity in a Room Stirs Up Nanoparticles Left Over from Consumer Sprays

Apr. 30, 2024 — Common household products containing nanoparticles -- grains of engineered material so miniscule they are invisible to the eye -- could be contributing to a new form of indoor air pollution, ...

Trotting Robots Reveal Emergence of Animal Gait Transitions

Apr. 30, 2024 — A four-legged robot trained with machine learning has learned to avoid falls by spontaneously switching between walking, trotting, and pronking -- a milestone for roboticists as well as biologists ...

Scientists Develop Strong Yet Reusable Adhesive from Smart Materials

Apr. 29, 2024 — Scientists have developed a smart, reusable adhesive more than ten times stronger than a gecko's feet adhesion, pointing the way for development of reusable superglue and grippers capable of holding ...

Robotic Nerve 'Cuffs' Could Help Treat a Range of Neurological Conditions

Apr. 26, 2024 — Researchers have developed tiny, flexible devices that can wrap around individual nerve fibers without damaging them. The researchers combined flexible electronics and soft robotics techniques to ...

Why Can't Robots Outrun Animals?

Apr. 26, 2024 — Robotics engineers have worked for decades and invested many millions of research dollars in attempts to create a robot that can walk or run as well as an animal. And yet, it remains the case that ...

A Shortcut for Drug Discovery

Apr. 25, 2024 — For most human proteins, there are no small molecules known to bind them chemically (so called 'ligands'). Ligands frequently represent important starting points for drug development but ...

Octopus Inspires New Suction Mechanism for Robots

Apr. 18, 2024 — A new robotic suction cup which can grasp rough, curved and heavy stone, has been developed by ...

An Ink for 3D-Printing Flexible Devices Without Mechanical Joints

Apr. 18, 2024 — Researchers are targeting the next generation of soft actuators and robots with an elastomer-based ink for 3D printing objects with locally changing mechanical properties, eliminating the need for ...

How 3D Printers Can Give Robots a Soft Touch

Apr. 17, 2024 — Soft skin coverings and touch sensors have emerged as a promising feature for robots that are both safer and more intuitive for human interaction, but they are expensive and difficult to make. A ...

Novel Robotic Training Program Reduces Physician Errors Placing Central Lines

Apr. 17, 2024 — More than five million central lines are placed in patients who need prolonged drug delivery, such as those undergoing cancer treatments, in the United States every year, yet the common procedure can ...

Star Trek's Holodeck Recreated Using ChatGPT and Video Game Assets

Apr. 11, 2024 — Star Trek's Holodeck is no longer just science fiction. Using AI, engineers have created a tool that can generate 3D environments, prompted by everyday ...

Engineers Design Soft and Flexible 'Skeletons' for Muscle-Powered Robots

Apr. 8, 2024 — Engineers designed modular, spring-like devices to maximize the work of live muscle fibers so they can be harnessed to power biohybrid ...

'Smart Swarms' of Tiny Robots Inspired by Natural Herd Mentality

Apr. 3, 2024 — Researchers gave nanorobots a trait called adaptive time delay, which allows them to better work ...

Intelligent Liquid

Apr. 3, 2024 — Researchers have developed a programmable meta-fluid with tunable springiness, optical properties, viscosity and even the ability to transition between a Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluid. The ...

Elastocaloric Cooling: Refrigerator Cools by Flexing Artificial Muscles

Apr. 2, 2024 — There is room for just one small bottle in the world's first refrigerator that is cooled with artificial muscles made of nitinol, a nickel-titanium alloy. But the mini-prototype is ...

Revolutionary Biomimetic Olfactory Chips to Enable Advanced Gas Sensing and Odor Detection

Mar. 28, 2024 — A research team has addressed the long-standing challenge of creating artificial olfactory sensors with arrays of diverse high-performance gas sensors. Their newly developed biomimetic olfactory ...

Robot, Can You Say 'Cheese'?

Mar. 27, 2024 — What would you do if you walked up to a robot with a human-like head and it smiled at you first? You'd likely smile back and perhaps feel the two of you were genuinely interacting. But how does ...

Engineering Household Robots to Have a Little Common Sense

Mar. 25, 2024 — Engineers aim to give robots a bit of common sense when faced with situations that push them off their trained path, so they can self-correct after missteps and carry on with their chores. The ...

Universal Controller Could Push Robotic Prostheses, Exoskeletons Into Real-World Use

Mar. 20, 2024 — A team of researchers has developed a universal approach to controlling robotic exoskeletons that requires no training, no calibration, and no adjustments to complicated algorithms. Instead, users ...

Robotic Metamaterial: An Endless Domino Effect

Mar. 20, 2024 — If it walks like a particle, and talks like a particle... it may still not be a particle. A topological soliton is a special type of wave or dislocation which behaves like a particle: it can move ...

Two Artificial Intelligences Talk to Each Other

Mar. 18, 2024 — Performing a new task based solely on verbal or written instructions, and then describing it to others so that they can reproduce it, is a cornerstone of human communication that still resists ...

Advance for Soft Robotics Manufacturing, Design

Mar. 18, 2024 — Engineers propose a new quantitative framework to account for and predict the impact of temperature on the curing speed of platinum-catalyzed silicone elastomers. The findings could maximize ...

Advanced Army Robots More Likely to Be Blamed for Deaths

Mar. 14, 2024 — Advanced killer robots are more likely to blamed for civilian deaths than military machines, new research has revealed. The study shows that high-tech bots will be held more responsible for ...